A provincial county has invited a film studio to shoot a boat tracker documentary in a bid to get the tradition included into the world intangible cultural heritage list.

Badong county in central China’s Hubei province used to depend on the river - the only route connecting it to the outside - to transport coal, wood and daily necessities hundreds or even thousands of years ago.

The rapid water along the narrow and winding watercourse of the river has given birth to generations of boat trackers.

But since the 1980s, with the development of transportation, there are no longer real boat trackers just performers attracting about several hundred thousand tourists every year.

Photographer: Shi Wei/Wuhan Morning News  Reporter: Zheng Jiaqin/Wuhan Morning News

Actors playing the part of naked boat tracker walk along a river in Badong county, Central China's Hubei province in Sept 2010. [Shi Wei/Wuhan Morning News ]

Actors playing the part of naked boat tracker walk along a river in Badong county, Central China's Hubei province in Sept 2010. [Shi Wei/Wuhan Morning News]